OS

First introduced in the ReactOS 0.4.5 release, the support for styles created for Microsoft's Windows XP operating system received further enhancements in ReactOS 0.4.7 to reduce visual glitches for several apps, as well as to better handle transparency and messaging.

ReactOS 0.4.7 also implements support for Shell extension and allows users to enable the Quick Launch shell extension manually if they want an early taste of this feature. Furthermore, the devs managed to bring the ReactOS painting process closer to the one of the Microsoft Windows OS.

Kubernetes is now -- no question about it -- the dominant cloud orchestration program. With Amazon Web Services (AWS) giving Kubernetes native support, all major clouds now support Kubernetes. This means more than just you can use the same program to manage your containers on different clouds. It also means you can use Kubernetes to manage all your containers on all your clouds in a single, cohesive fashion. This is what CoreOS brings to the table, with its latest release of Tectonic.

The ReactOS Project is pleased to announce the release of version 0.4.7 as we continue to work on releasing every three months.

We’re especially pleased to present this release as the very first one that’s been developed in our new Git/GitHub repository. Moving from Subversion to GitHub has proven to be an invaluable way to reach new testers, users and improve the overall awareness of the ReactOS project.

At the end of October ReactOS 0.4.7-RC1 was released as the newest test release for this open-source operating system project continuing to work on re-implementing the Windows APIs. That official v0.4.7 release is now available.

Besides working on disabling ME in all their laptops, the System76 team has also been busy working on their new Ubuntu-derived Pop!_OS operating system.

With System76 trying to get Pop!_OS into great shape for their release in April derived from Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, it's a busy holiday season in their Colorado offices. A blog post was issued on Friday detailing some of their recent work.

The number of connected IoT devices worldwide is in the billions and growing rapidly. Many of these edge devices – from fitness trackers to sensors to washing machines to automotive transmissions – use low-cost, low-powered microcontrollers with extremely limited memory and compute capability. For some IoT use cases, very predictable response times can also be critical (think: automotive). A standard operating system won’t work here: you need a real-time operating system (RTOS) that works in very constrained systems.

In contrast to most releases, which are focused on one or two major themes, the development during the release cycle of version 17.11 was almost entirely driven by the practical use of Genode as a day-to-day OS by the entire staff of Genode Labs. The basis of this endeavor is an evolving general-purpose system scenario - dubbed "sculpt" - that is planned as an official feature for the next release 18.02. The name "sculpt" hints at the approach to start with a minimalistic generic live system that can be interactively shaped into a desktop scenario by the user without any reboot. This is made possible by combining Genode's unique dynamic reconfiguration concept with the recently introduced package management, our custom GUI stack, and the many ready-to-use device-driver components that we developed over the past years.

Genode is the open-source operating system framework designed for "highly secure" special-purpose operating systems from embedded platforms to desktops while subscribing to a Unix philosophy and going for an L4 micro-kernel approach. The Genode OS 17.11 represents another quarter's worth of changes.

A lot of the work represented by Genode OS 17.11 is on beating the operating system platform into shape to be a day-to-day OS. Among the changes to find is its GUI stack being reworked, scroll-wheel emulation and pointer acceleration finally, other input handling improvements, all x86 micro-kernels now using the GRUB2 boot-loader, Nim programming language usage, and more.

Known as one of the most beautiful GNU/Linux distributions, Deepin provides a safe, secure, reliable, and easy-to-use computer operating system for users of all ages and genre. The latest release, Deepin 15.5, is now available for download bringing full support for HiDPI displays, as well as support for the Flatpak universal binary format.

"Deepin 15.5 mainly added HiDPI, fingerprint scanning and Flatpak application format. Deepin Desktop Environment and various components fully support the adaptation of HiDPI, auto-identify the appropriate resolution for HiDPI. The interface, fonts and icons are shown more clearly and harmoniously," reads today's announcement.

We’re pleased to announce the third release candidate for Qubes 4.0! Our goal for this release candidate is to improve the stability and reliability of Qubes 4.0, so we’ve prioritized fixing known bugs over introducing new features. Many of the bugs discovered in our previous release candidate are now resolved. A full list of the Qubes 4.0 issues closed so far is available here.

Containers are all the rage, and with good reason. As discussed previously, containers allow you to quickly and easily deploy new services and applications onto your network, without requiring too much in the way of added system resources. Containers are more cost-effective than using dedicated hardware or virtual machines, and they’re easier to update and reuse.

Best of all, containers love Linux (and vice versa). Without much trouble or time, you can get a Linux server up and running with Docker and deploying containers. But, which Linux distribution is best suited for the deployment of your containers? There are a lot of options. You could go with a standard Ubuntu Server platform (which makes installing Docker and deploying containers incredibly easy), or you could opt for a lighter weight distribution — one geared specifically for the purpose of deploying containers.

Almost every month, KaOS developers release an updated installation medium that contains all the latest GNU/Linux technologies and Open Source applications. The KaOS 2017.11 ISO snapshot comes the recently released KDE Plasma 5.11.3 desktop environment, as well as both KDE Applications 17.08.3 and KDE Frameworks 5.40.0 software stacks, all compiled against the Qt 5.9.2 application framework.

"KaOS repositories no longer provide Qt 4," said the devs in the release announcement. "Any application that has not made the transition to Qt 5 in all this time can no longer be supported in KaOS. Either they actually are no longer maintained or their development is ignoring the implications of building on a possible insecure toolkit."

Tails 3.3 comes one and a half months after the release of Tails 3.2, and while it's still based on the Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" operating system, the OS is now powered by the Linux 4.13 kernel series, which means more excellent support for running the distro on the latest hardware out there.

This release also comes with some of the latest TOR software to provide users with the best support when surfing the Web anonymously. Tails 3.3 includes Tor 0.3.1.8 client and server for connecting to Tor anonymous networks or running a Tor relay, as well as the Firefox-based Tor Browser 7.0.10 web browser.